IRIS

School started Monday, and Iris came over last weekend to help Amanda organize her room.  Iris is a champion organizer.  She even has labels in the refrigerator.
       
Amanda’s room was my despair, though she is a top-notch tidier, and if I don’t ask her she does it on her own every few days, quickly whisking everything to its place. But there were too many things, and not enough places.  Broken toys, single earrings, dead balloons, pieces of plastic and cardboard with no known provenance, and everything she had brought home from kindergarten through second grade.  All of it in higgledy piggledy piles: on the dresser, on the bookcase, in the corners.  Piles on the desk so the flip top couldn’t be opened, piles on the night stand imperiling the nightly glass of water.
   
But even though I hate the mess, I am torn.  When I was a child the rule was: no food in your room, and keep the door closed.  So part of me says it’s Amanda’s room, not mine.  Another part says it’s my job to teach her how to keep control over the mountains of things that invade our space.  And a third part wants her to be what I am not.  I am a lifelong slob with organizing tendencies.  I live surrounded by clutter, but I love to spend a  morning tidying, and I long for bare, beautiful rooms.

 
MY CLUTTER

My internal conflict about Amanda’s autonomy is part of the challenge of being her mother.  Her favorite phrases are “I can do it,” “I don’t need help,” “Leave me alone.”  I’m never sure whether I should guide, instruct, require, or leave it up to her.  Lazy (let her do whatever and however she wants) is as bad as authoritarian (you’ll do it my way, right now).  It’s finding the crooked path between that is hard for me. 

I encourage independence as much as I can.  When we do the laundry together I help her sort and put away, but she loads and runs the machines while I watch.  She makes Sunday morning pancakes all by herself while I set the kitchen table and keep an eye out for danger.  She climbs the ladder and cleans the muck from the gutters under Joe’s supervision.   It’s a treat to see her gain competence and confidence.

At the same time, I often do know what’s best.  She has plenty yet to learn, and sometimes she has to let me teach it.  So I decided she would begin the school year with a desk she can work at, books and supplies she can find, and a closet where her clothes don’t disappear.  But I knew we would tussle if I tried to help, and I proposed that we ask Iris.

Iris has known Amanda since before she was born – she was at the baby shower for Amanda’s mother, and gave a women's welcome party when Amanda first came to live with us.  She was happy to help.  Her own grown daughter, temporarily living with her, won’t let Iris touch her room.

Amanda would have resisted me at every turn, but she worked happily with Iris.
They spent four hours organizing – sorting, boxing, even discarding.  Amanda scrubbed all the surfaces before they put everything away.  

Like anyone cleaning out a room, Amanda lingered over things – old toys, old letters, old photos.  I would have been in my juggernaut mode: don’t dawdle, we have a job to do.  Iris let her talk about the memories that caught her.  Amanda wouldn’t give away anything, but by the time they were through, the biggest bin was full of dolls, stuffed animals, and toddler toys.
       
I did a few little things as follow-up – moved winter clothes to a storage box on the top shelf of her closet, threw out the trash bag, moved the shoe rack into a corner.  I’m going to buy one more big bookcase to take care of the tidy piles still left to put away, and a label-maker.  Amanda resisted this until I told her it was Iris’ suggestion.  Then she agreed I could buy them, but I wasn’t to touch her stuff.  She and Iris would finish the job

Even with some work left to do, the room looks wonderful.  I can breathe in it again.  I am so grateful to Iris for doing this, and even more grateful for her role in Amanda’s life.  I’ll always be Amanda’s grandma, but now I’m her mother too, dispenser of rules, routines and requirements.  She needs women who can delight in her without trying to fix her.  Iris is one of these women, and Amanda loves her.